London ? In a taped interview, a speaker purported to be Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, threatens new attacks on the United States, its allies and its economy.

The authenticity of the audiotape, obtained by Associated Press Television News on Tuesday, could not be independently confirmed. It was not known when the tape was made though it includes references to the United States’ recent standoff with Iraq and a July 1 U.S. bombing in Afghanistan.

The speaker said to be al-Zawahiri accuses the United States of trying, through its campaign against Iraq, to subjugate the Arab world on behalf of Israel.

Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian who is regarded as a primary strategist of the al-Qaida terrorists and was with bin Laden in Afghanistan, disappeared soon after Sept. 11 but is widely thought to have survived U.S. bombing there. U.S. officials say they don’t know whether he or bin Laden are alive.

Al-Zawahiri was said to be alive in a satellite telephone conversation reportedly intercepted over the weekend by U.S. and Afghan intelligence. The conversation was between fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and his former deputy prime minister, Maulvi Abdul Kabir, an Afghan intelligence official told The Associated Press. The report could not be confirmed by U.S. officials.

The audio interview attributed to al-Zawahiri was obtained by APTN in the form of a video compact disc. On the disc, the interview is played against a video backdrop with English subtitles of the conversation, along with scenes from the Sept. 11 attacks and other news footage.

APTN on Tuesday played the tape to Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, who has interviewed al-Zawahiri.

The translated words of Ayman al-Zawahri, speaking in a taped interview, are superimposed over archive footage of Israeli bulldozers destroying Palestinian buildings, in this image made from television in London.

“To my knowledge it does sound like the voice of Ayman al-Zawahiri,” Atwan said. “I don’t have assurance that it is 100 percent his voice, but definitely it’s the closest to his voice.” He noted that the speaker has an Egyptian accent and uses language used by al-Zawahiri in previous speeches.

Al-Zawahiri, 50, is believed to be bin Laden’s doctor and spiritual adviser, providing the ideology that drove al-Qaida. He was the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad until he forged an alliance with bin Laden in 1998.

Al-Zawahiri is on the U.S. most wanted list, and the government is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to his capture. Egypt sentenced him to death in absentia in 1999 for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan and for attempting to kill officials in Egypt. He has been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.